4.3. Inductive Knowledge
As already stated, inductive knowledge is caused by an inference, called
induction (equation (3)), where knowledge claim and provenance are not
identical. Instead, knowledge provenance herein refers to pieces of
observations, experimental data, etc. There exist three categories of
inductive knowledge—informal-induction-based knowledge,
relation-of-ideas-assisted inductive knowledge, and complex
induction-based knowledge—described as follows.
The first category can be described using the scenario depicted in
Figure 3. Figure 3(a ) depicts plots of machining forces, such as
the cutting force (Fc ), thrust force
(Ft ), and feed force (Ff ).
The underlying machining experiments have been reported by Ullah (2018).
Figure 3(b ) depicts a concept map that comprises a piece of
informal-induction-based knowledge that underlies the provenance
depicted in Figure 3(a ). The concept map depicted in Figure
3(b ) boils down to following statements—(1) The manufacturing
process called turning exhibits machining force; (2) Machining force
comprises three orthogonal components—cutting force
(Fc ), thrust force (Ft ),
and feed force (Ff ); and (3) Experimental results
(shown here) demonstrate that the three orthogonal components are
related as Fc >Ft > Ff . The
last statement is an example of informal-induction-based knowledge,
because it is derived by visually inspecting datasets depicted in Figure
3(a ) without performing formal computations. The truthiness of
such knowledge can be verified using provenance. Thus, data attached to
the node “shown here” must direct users to the URL
https://doi.org/10.3390/jmmp2040068 from where they can extract relevant
data. The other two statements represent definitional knowledge.